18 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: An update on subreddit classification efforts
I think this is a good idea, though I have a few questions:
1. Where is the line between General and Mature? Would a subreddit that is otherwise for all audiences but allows swear usage be considered general or mature?
2. How does this apply for comments? How would a subreddit that more or less has clean posts but can have more mature comment sections be classified? I think maybe having two ratings for posts or comments could maybe work, or having comments be rated could also work more ideally, though at the cost of significantly more mod/commenter work
3. Would this remove the NSFW tag entirely, or be added in addition to it? For example, in absence of a post rating system, I don't think removing the NSFW tag on posts would be a good idea.
4. How would this affect reddit searching? Would a user be able to set a content rating (much like the current NSFW setting) to be able to choose what type of subreddits show up in searches?
5. Would this extend to user profiles? And if they did, would comments of certain maturity level users be nor shown/hidden?
I apologize for the length, but I think its clear that this kind of content rating has great potential. I also think better abilities to individually block content that you don't want to see would be a good addition on top of the full potential of this system. It would likely solve a lot of the granularity issues and edge cases
Comment by 0perspective at 02/09/2020 at 01:34 UTC
5 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Thanks for these questions.
1. The line between General vs. Mature varies depending on the mature theme, so it’s not necessarily a “hard line.” To use your example, “Regular use of profanity” would be considered Mature. However, we’re letting moderators make the decision about what they consider “Regular use of profanity” and then crowdsourcing feedback from community members to see if it matches up. If a lot of people who take part in a community think that yeah, we’ve got some pretty heavy handed swearing going on and that’s what the mod said too, then we have a good idea that the survey and the content tags feel good to everyone and are doing their job. However, if the community and moderator feedback is mixed, that’s a signal that we should look into the tag and the survey and see if we can improve it.
2. We consider comments a huge part of a community and how you experience it, so yes this applies for comments. We’re asking people to characterize both the posts and discussion in their communities.
3. Eventually, we’d like to bring this to posts, but that’s a bit further out than today. Like I’ve said in a few other comments, we’re focusing on getting a system of tags that works for our communities right now. The NSFW tag is still useful and helpful for people to have on posts, so I agree with you—I don't think removing the NSFW tag on posts would be a good idea either. That said, if one day the NSFW tag on posts isn’t helpful or useful anymore, and this new system is, then we’d consider removing it.
4. Yup, this is one idea we’re thinking of. And creating “better abilities to individually block content that you don't want to see” that you brought up would be part of this.
5. Great question. This hasn’t come up in discussions yet, but it’s something we can explore.
And long comments are cool. No apologies necessary.